A s a longtime eater in San Francisco, I rarely have been as excited by the breadth, depth, and creativity of our new restaurants. Their menus continue to be driven by ingredients from local farms, a movement that began over 30 years ago. And many chefs still look to Asia in this Pacific Rim city, drawing interpretively from a wide range of Eastern pantries. The big difference today is the effect of social media. The Internet created the possibility of the pop-up during the capital-scarce years of the recession. Now, in the midst of a new tech boom, online followers have become investors, supplying start-ups with brick-and-mortar homes as well as built-in buzz. Here are my hard-chosen favorites among the recent arrivals on San Francisco's dining scene.

Former French Laundry wizard Corey Lee takes diners on a fantastic journey through a culinary territory where Eastern and Western techniques and ingredients intersect. Though the Benu dining room can feel austere, Lee's exquisitely designed Asian-inflected tableware frames each dish: his famous lobster xiao long bao; a faux-shark-fin soup poured over black truffle custard; his spin on Peking duck. The varying 16-plus-course exploration is tightly if gracefully paced, each course commenting and building on the ones before, enhanced by intuitive drinks from the best sommelier in town, Yoon Ha. Part kaiseki but also luxuriously French, dinner at this SoMa spot calls for a splurge: The fixed price is $180, before a drop of wine. (Benu, 22 Hawthorne St.; 415-685-4860)

Rich Table in Hayes Valley has caught the imagination of San Francisco's most experienced eaters because it always surprises, in the best possible way. I don't know how chefs Evan and Sarah Rich do it, but they come up with profoundly original yet accessible dishes daily for their homey dining room fashioned out of recycled wood. This disciplined kitchen balances innovation and excitement with pure comfort in dishes like potato chips threaded with sardines; rabbit cannelloni in nasturtium cream strewn with bright-orange nasturtium blossoms; or berries blanketed with berry granita, berry gelée, and tiny cilantro leaves. The waitstaff patiently describes dishes, whimsical cocktails, and unusual wines available by the glass and carafe. (Rich Table, 199 Gough St.; 415-355-9085)

Off the beaten track on a quiet, tree-lined street not far from the Haight, this marble-countered ice cream shop evokes the Prohibition years, when neighborhood soda fountains stood in for the corner bar. In shades of decades past, the Ice Cream Bar soda jerks create adult (though nonalcoholic) drinks using herbal extracts and syrupy reductions. Absolutely everything is made from scratch here—ice creams, ices, syrups, sauces, and the remarkable flavorings. Watch a soda jerk build banana splits with brûléed-to-order bananas, or a grown-up butterscotch milk shake of eggs, cream, rye-based butterscotch syrup, and malt, shaken long and hard over ice like a Martini. To really go adult, try a lactart of tea tincture, turbinado syrup, cream, lactic acid, and soda, finished with a spray of tobacco aromatic. It all works. The re-creation of old-fashioned ingredients is uniquely, obsessively, San Franciscan. (Ice Cream Bar, 815 Cole St.; 415-742-4932)

Patricia Unterman publishes Unterman on Food, a newsletter and Web site. She was the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, and author of five editions of The San Francisco Food Lover's Guide. She has written about food and travel for Afar, Food and Wine, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, and 7x7. She is also co-owner and founder of the Hayes Street Grill in San Francisco, established in 1979.